Venture Labor Work and the Burden of Risk in Innovative Industries

In the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, employees of Internet startups took risks―left well-paying jobs for the chance of striking it rich through stock options (only to end up unemployed a year later), relocated to areas that were epicenters of a booming industry (that shortly went bust), chose the opportunity to be creative over the stability of a set schedule. In Venture Labor, Gina Neff investigates choices like these made by high-tech workers in New York City's "Silicon Alley" in the 1990s. Why did these workers exhibit entrepreneurial behavior in their jobs―investing time, energy, and other personal resources that Neff terms "venture labor"―when they themselves were employees and not entrepreneurs?